Ex Parte Donneau-Golencer et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 28, 201712632491 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 28, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 12/632,491 12/07/2009 THIERRY DONNE,AU-GOT ENCER 60463-0078 3905 149426 7590 11/30/2017 Hickman Palermo / SRI International 1 Almaden Boulevard, Floor 12 San Jose, CA 95113 EXAMINER NGUYEN, LE V ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2174 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/30/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): usdocket@h35g.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte THIERRY DONNEAU-GOLENCER, STEPHEN HARDT, CHIRSTOPER ADAM OVERHOTZER, and KENNETH NITZ1 Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 Technology Center 2100 Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, ROBERT E. NAPPI, and JASON M. REPKO Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1 through 5 and 10 through 23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is SRI International. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 INVENTION Appellants’ disclosed invention is directed to a system for assisting a user with a current workflow being performed on a computing device to suggest and aid the user in performing the current workflow. See Abstract. Claim 1 is representative of the invention and reproduced below (emphasis added). 1. A method for assisting a user with a current workflow being performed by the user on a computing device, the current workflow comprising authoring or editing an electronic document by the user via a currently open document authoring or editing software application, the method comprising: monitoring the current workflow; extracting a context from the current workflow, the context relating to an item of content authored or edited by the user via the currently open document authoring or editing software application; identifying, from a plurality of documents that are accessible to the computing device, a set of suggested documents, by, automatically: extracting a plurality of concepts from the documents; clustering the concepts into a plurality of clusters, wherein each cluster is associated with one of the concepts extracted from the documents; identifying a cluster, from the plurality of clusters, whose associated concept most closely matches the context extracted from the current workflow; and selecting the set of suggested documents from the closest cluster; responsive to a triggering event, presenting an interactive graphical element representative of the identified set of suggested documents that are implicitly determined to be semantically related to the item of content associated with the context; 2 Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 detecting a user selection of the interactive graphical element; and in response to the user selection of the interactive graphical element, incorporating content from the set of suggested documents that are implicitly determined to be semantically related to the item of content associated with the context into the electronic document being authored or edited by the user via the currently open document authoring or editing software application; wherein the triggering event is at least one of: the user closing a document, the user editing a document, the user reading an email, the user responding to an email, or the user accessing a calendar application. REJECTIONS AT ISSUE2 The Examiner has rejected claims 1 through 5 and 15 through 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being unpatentable over Macbeth (US 2007/0300174 Al, Dec. 27, 2007), Liu (US 2003/015589 Al, June 5, 2003) and Konig (US 2006/0136589 Al, June 22, 2006). Final Act. 2-9. The Examiner has rejected claims 10 through 12 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being unpatentable over Macbeth, Liu, Konig, and Inaba (US 6,298,344 Bl, Oct. 2, 2001). Final Act. 9-11. The Examiner has rejected claim 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being unpatentable over Macbeth, Liu, Konig, Inaba, and Steichen (US 7,496,567 Bl, Feb. 24, 2009). Final Act. 11-12. 2 Throughout this Decision we refer to the Appeal Brief filed November 16, 2016, Final Office Action mailed May 16, 2016, and the Examiner’s Answer mailed December 30, 2016. 3 Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 ISSUES Appellants argue on pages 4 through 7 of the Appeal Brief that the Examiner’s rejection of representative claim 1 is in error. These arguments present us with the following three issues: 1) Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Macbeth, Liu, and Konig teach extracting a plurality of concepts from the documents, clustering the concepts wherein each cluster is associated with a concept extracted from the document? 2) Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Macbeth, Liu, and Konig teach the triggering event is at least one of closing a document, editing a document, reading an e-mail, responding to an e-mail or accessing a calendar? 3) Did the Examiner provide adequate rationale to combine the teachings of Macbeth, Liu, and Konig? ANALYSIS Appellants’ arguments directed to the first issue focus on Macbeth and assert that the reference does not teach clustering the concepts wherein each cluster is associated with a concept extracted from the document. App. Br. 4-5. Specifically, Appellants state: Mac[b]eth allegedly begins with clusters, from which concepts are extracted, but fails to teach or suggest the basis for creating those alleged clusters, as claimed. Rather, Mac[b]eth merely identifies "what" resources can be identified to assist a user but contains no teaching as to "how" those resources may be identified, and certainly does not teach the use of any clustering techniques. App. Br. 5. 4 Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 The Examiner responds to Appellants’ arguments identifying that Macbeth teaches documents may be clustered based upon project or activity and the outputted documents correspond to the concept most closely matching the context. Answer 14 (citing paras. 12, 85). We concur, paragraph 12 of Macbeth identifies that the information provided to the user includes documents (links to files) and paragraph 85 discusses that when a type of activity is being performed, a knowledge capture is performed which remembers information including documents necessary to perform the activity (i.e., categorized by activity). This captured information is shared with other users performing similar activities. The Examiner also finds that the Konig teaches extracting concepts and clustering them. Answer 14 (citing Konig paras. 72, 106). We concur. Appellants’ argument that Konig “clusters users, not documents” is not persuasive or error. App. Br. 6. The documents are associated with these users, thus clustering the users is also clustering the documents. Accordingly, Appellants’ arguments directed to the first issue have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of representative claim 1. Appellants’ arguments directed to the second issue focus on Konig not teaching the triggering event is at least one of closing a document, editing a document, reading an e-mail, responding to an e-mail or accessing a calendar as recited in representative claim 1. Specifically, Appellants argue the identified documents in Konig are not based upon current workflow. App. Br. 6. Further, Appellants’ state “Konig only references user's writing emails or documents as 5 Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 examples of activities used to create the user model, not as a triggering event to present ‘an interactive graphical element representative of the identified set of suggested documents,’ as claimed.” App. Br. 6. We are not persuaded by these arguments, as the Examiner finds that Macbeth teaches providing documents based upon a users’ current workflow. Further, the Examiner finds that Konig teaches using the models in multiple modes of interaction and monitoring triggering events including editing documents. Answer 15 (citing Konig paras. 129, 137, 185). We concur with the Examiner. Konig teaches using the models in association with an e-mail, (which is an interactive graphical program). Accordingly, Appellants’ arguments directed to the second issue have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Appellants’ arguments directed to the third issue assert the Examiner provided inadequate rationale to combine the teachings of Macbeth, Liu, and Konig. App. Br. 6-7. Specifically, Appellants’ argue the combination would frustrate Macbeth’s purpose of providing user assistance, as Konig and Liu use models based on the prior activity of the user. App. Br. 7. The Examiner responds to Appellants’ augments stating that Macbeth, Liu, and Konig are all concerned with providing assistance by suggesting other documents. Answer 16. Further, the Examiner considers that the skilled artisan would combine Konig’s teaching to allow the system to predict the users interests by continually updating the recommendations based upon the actions of the user and other 6 Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 users. Final Act. 6. We consider the Examiner’s to have provided a reasoned rationale and do not consider that the teachings of Liu and Konig would frustrate Macbeth’s purpose of providing assistance to a user. Thus, Appellants’ arguments directed to the third issue have not persuaded us of error in Examiner’s rejection of representative independent claim. Appellants have grouped claims 1 through 5 and 15 through 23 together (App. Br. 4), thus we sustain the Examiner’s rejection 1 through 5 and 15 through 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon Macbeth, Liu, and Konig for the reasons discussed with respect to representative claim 1. Appellants have not addressed the Examiner’s rejections of claims 10 through 14. As we are not presented with any additional issues with respect to these rejections, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 10 through 14 for the reasons discussed with respect to claim 1. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 5 and 10 through 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 7 Appeal 2017-005189 Application 12/632,491 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation